Fantasy Football Fixtures Game-week 8

Fantasy Football Fixtures Game-week 8

Game-week 7 is over and we now move to week 8 and wouldn’t you know it, we now have a title race (for at least the time being). Not two weeks ago we were ready to hand Manchester City the Premier League crown to save the Premier League Officials the insurance money of looking after the trophy for another nine months but now City are second in the league and Manchester United, ridiculed and often-dismissed United, lead the league by one point.
Fun fact: Chelsea have now dropped more points this season than they have in their entire 9 year history! The untouchable Jose is now the playground pushover as Garry Monk, Manuel Pellegrini, Alan Pardew, Roberto Martinez and even Steve McClaren have taken some or all of his lunch money.
Arsenal will, as usual, score five goals when three would do and won’t manage one when they most need it. Although Alexis Sanchez is the type of player who could well carry this team further than the sum of its parts should mathematically take them, much as Luis Suarez almost did with Liverpool two years ago. Ah Liverpool, poor poor Liverpool. No, I’m not feeling sorry for them, I’m just saying they are a poor poor Liverpool.

[divider_1px]

The Tracker…
We have rated each teams fixtures on a sliding scale. Remember that this is just our opinion and you may feel differently but if nothing else it gives you a nice easy visual aid as to each teams upcoming games…

We do have a comprehensive library of other useful trackers including the all singing, all dancing interactive one from Calvin Clyne and you can find them all here – Fixture Trackers

[divider_1px]

FAVOURABLE FIXTURES
Manchester City – Newcastle United (H), Bournemouth (H), Manchester United (A)
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]

[/three_fourth]The Citizens can and do beat everyone at home (yep Slaven, I hear you mate) so it follows that two teams with Championship links, one former, one soon-to-be, are next to the slaughter. Newcastle, despite leading Chelsea 2-0 are always one lapse in concentration away from a disaster and Bournemouth, well, will simply never have faced the might of a team in all their history like City at the Emptyhad. What is a worry is if Sergio Aguero remains so disjointed, if Yaya Toure is injured, if Raheem Sterling continues to shoot so waywardly, if Samir Nasri keeps being caught on the ball, if Jesus Navas intend to carry on hitting the first defender with his cross EVERY TIME then City may just be left frustrated. The Tottenham game showed evidently that David Silva is their most important figure. After these forthcoming ‘turkey-shoots’ they face United away and that shouldn’t put you off, tough as it may be as it’s Norwich and Villa immediately after. Stick with them.

[divider_1px]

Crystal Palace – West Bromwich Albion (H), West Ham United (H), Leicester City (A)
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]

[/three_fourth]In fairness, you probably could generally group Palace and their next three opponents in the same bracket of ability and whilst these next three games aren’t easy, they are all individually winnable for the good Lord and his flock. This is the time of the season where the Eagles look back and review a very tough start which has been of highs and lows really, by losing at home narrowly to Arsenal and very late in the day to Manchester City being offset by the monumental victory away to Chelsea. In fact, rather brilliantly to illustrate the fluctuation of their results, pre-Watford they had three wins and three defeats scoring just one more (8) than they had conceded. Now that their fixtures ‘level out’ across these three (be wary of Liverpool and United on the horizon), you could dip your toe in the Crystal waters.

[divider_1px]

Norwich City – Leicester City (H), Newcastle United (A), West Bromwich Albion (H)
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]

[/three_fourth]The Canaries are not giving much away cheaply (sorry). I was due one stinker!
Ahem. Norwich have equipped themselves well so far this season with a 2 wins and 3 draws record from their first seven. Rather unnerving though is the fact that eight of these points were collected on their travels. The sole point in Norfolk was the 1-1 draw with Stoke. No doubt now that Alex Neil is looking to Leicester and West Brom as a potential source of that first home win. The meat in this sandwich is a trip to the North East to meet Newcastle to which they will surely arrive with much confidence having already dispatched the other half of the Likely Lads in Advocaat’s Sunderland earlier in the season. Nathan Redmond yet again notched in the draw at West Ham and he looks the type of player to be the perfect outlet for the way his side play away from home. In truth, the team as a whole play a lovely counter-attacking game based on soaking home pressure then carving their attacks with passing and movement of very high quality. This sets them up very well away from home. Transferring the away results to Carrow Road now is the trick.

[divider_1px]

Swansea City – Tottenham Hotspur (H), Stoke City (H), Aston Villa (A)
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]

[/three_fourth]Swansea were an early addition to this section but with no wins in three (and none in four in all competitions) interest is starting to fall away in the Welsh team. I’ve kept them in here however for those with faith in their Swans contingent which is more than likely either Bafetimbi Gomis or Andre Ayew. Tottenham at home on Sunday follows a Spurs Euro adventure to the playground of the rich and famous (and Cookie) that is Monaco. Another home game follows this versus Stoke and then a trip to Aston Villa for a game of “Who Ayew” as Andre meets his brother Jordan. Norwich and Bournemouth are two of the next three after the above fixtures (the other is Arsenal at home) so Swansea do have the fixtures on side, they just now need to rediscover their early season form which made them THE team to watch with their positive results at Chelsea and in handing Manchester United their only domestic defeat of the season.

[divider_1px]

West Bromwich Albion – Crystal Palace (A), Sunderland (H), Norwich City (A)
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]

[/three_fourth]“If you don’t lose goals, you don’t lose games”. Who said that? Well I don’t actually know (*lazy ‘journalism’*) but whoever said it, Tony Pulis taught them it. Let’s face it, we all should have some West Brom coverage in our teams, especially defensively where you can pick up Myhill or Evans and have change of £5.0M which is probably going to be some of the best money you’ll spend this season. There is even talk in some quarters of ‘doubling up’ on the West Brom defence as it is that reliable. And….. then they went and conceded three at home to Everton! Ok so it sounded good when we wrote it, so we left it in, but actually it may not be a bad thing as it will probably just cause Tony to tighten things up even more for future games and get them back on track. So looking at the fixtures ahead and they face Crystal Palace first up and who knows Palace better than the current manager – probably the former manager, one Tony Pulis. He has that knack of just getting the results against his former clubs. Sunderland at home seems a banker home win and clean sheet and then Norwich away should also be classed as a win there for the taking. Looking further ahead, Leicester could be tamed at home and then it’s Manchester United away in which you just know Pulis will set his side up to have a right good go at frustrating van Gaal’s men.

[divider_1px]

BE WARY OF…
Chelsea – Southampton (H), Aston Villa (H), West Ham United (A)
Yep, Chelsea. Chelsea mirror Manchester City in that two of their next three are at home. However they have shown so far that this season they are far from invincible. Interestingly the Blues didn’t beat Southampton in the league last season, a pair of 1-1 draws. Aston Villa should be a routine three points if such a thing exists these days but after that it’s a London ding-dong on the cards against West Ham who have the better record in matches in the east end and historically and will be looking at this match being, in all probability, their last ever home game against Chelsea at the Boleyn. Liverpool and Stoke after that are games that could be more problematic for the reigning, but waning champions.

[divider_1px]

Aston Villa – Stoke City (H), Chelsea (A), Swansea City (H)
Aston Villa or more importantly, Tim Sherwood, won the Birmingham derby in the League Cup last midweek and that probably bought ‘Nice but Dim’ a few weeks, trouble is that in those weeks he faces teams in the Premier League who are better than his own. Granted, most of them are but he could have had a fairer hand than Stoke, Chelsea, Swansea, Tottenham (at the Lane, which he’ll annoyingly probably win) and then Manchester City across the next five. I forecast a lot of claret and blue on many a substitutes’ bench in the fantasy world, if it’s not already sold.

[divider_1px]

Everton – Liverpool (H), Manchester United (H), Arsenal (A)
On the back of a great comeback victory at West Brom courtesy of a Lukaku brace (20% ownership would you Adam & Eve it, stats courtesy of The B ) Everton are surely now beginning to see a little light at the end of the fixtures tunnel. Yeah they have done well in putting a few points on the board from very difficult games but they have to remain within the ‘Be Wary Of’ Bin for at least this week. They play Sunderland in four weeks but they have to deal with City neighbours Liverpool, Manchester United and a trip to the Arsenal before then. Sunderland might be good by then. (Stop my drink!). After the Sunderland game, however that may go, is a trip to Champions League contenders West Ham. So not out of the woods yet Toffees.

[divider_1px]

Liverpool – Everton (A), Tottenham Hotspur (A), Southampton (H)
If the rumours are to be believed, Brendan Rodgers must win the next two matches JUST to buy him some more time. Aston Villa was one of his “three strikes OR YOU’RE OUT!” ultimatum. He just about passed the first one. So next up are Everton at Goodison where Liverpool seem to do very well so you could see him maybe lasting until Tottenham but as for their players from a fantasy perspective, it would probably be a case of keep what you have but don’t invest. That is unless of course Daniel Sturridge can notch another this week. The England striker’s return to fitness, could just be the little bit of luck Rodgers needs. The fixtures however, could be kinder.

[divider_1px]

Manchester United – Arsenal (A), Everton (A), Manchester City (H)
The league leaders in this section may sound odd and in three games time, with 9 points, 9 goals and 9 press conference nuggets from everyone’s favourite crazy Uncle Louis, I could be shown to be a tad foolish. But I deal with the fixtures in front of me and it is undoubtedly a very testing period ahead for United. They must go to Arsenal and Everton which, on the right day for the home side, can be two of the toughest places in the league, before they return home to entertain the noisy ones from across the way in the derby. Stretching it out further, there then comes a trip to The Lord’s Manor of Crystal Palace (where as mentioned earlier, City and Arsenal have only managed to squeeze victories) followed by West Brom at The Theatre which will mean Tony Pulis’ team will be another five weeks down the line in terms of watertightedness. Chuck in the Champions League and a necessity to get off the mark in that, and you have a very important, perhaps the most important, period of the LVG era so far.

[divider_1px]

One week only picks!
Whilst many managers plan their transfers with the next few weeks ahead in mind we are also conscious that some simply play each game-week as it comes. This may be for a variety of reasons such as having a rotating forward or simply because they need the best pick in order to facilitate another important move. A such we have decided to take a quick look at the upcoming GW8 in isolation and give you our top 3 picks for this week only…

Pick 1
Manchester City – Newcastle United (H)
OK so they featured above but the point of having them here is to extend your coverage if you can. Have one? Get two! Have two? Get three. Have three? Do you have the correct three? Probably not.

Pick 2
West Ham United – Sunderland (A)
Basically just stick in here whoever plays Sunderland I thought. It turned out to be West Ham who are quite good away from home this season, I don’t know if you’ve heard? The way football is this will be the one they’ll lose! But if you are looking for an attacker for one week (with the possibility of keeping him) then get Payet or Sakho in for this week for sure.

Pick 3
Stoke City – Aston Villa (A)
Week 7 goalscorer Mame Biram Diouf could be turned to now for those with a bit of poppy and wondering who to replace a potentially long-term absentee in Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson with. Looking to give someone the benefit of the doubt – then give them Aston Villa. Jonathan Walters also appears to be set once again to go very well for his value.

[divider_1px]
Fixture Fun
European football returns this week as we see whether the cream of our crop can fair a bit better than they did last time out! Chelsea are excused but then they did have a roll over of a home tie and quite frankly if they hadn’t beaten Maccabi Tel Aviv then Jose wouldn’t still be with us. They travel to Porto on Tuesday and on the same night Arsenal host Olympiakos. The Manchester contigent both feature on Wednesday as City travel to Borussia Moenchangladbach while United host a struggling Wolfsberg.

Thursday sees the return of the dreaded Europa League as Spurs go to Monaco and Liverpool host Sion.

Luckily this week, the three English sides who are away from home have relatively short journeys to fulfil their commitments so at least that is something (Tottenham travel nearly 4000km to Qarabag later in the campaign). Therefore, a customary warning to be aware of other potential issues such as player fatigue or injuries, rotation or poor displays before taking the plunge on any of your intended targets this week.

[divider_1px]

Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Fixtures Game-week 8 – Fantasy Premier League 2015-16. This article was written by The Gallant Pioneer

Follow @mitchellcraig81

[divider_1px_dashed]

[row][span6]

Vote on our Captain Poll Now

[/span6][span6]

Fixture Tracker

[/span6][/row]

[divider_1px]

FANTEAM.COM – FANTASY BETTING

It’s time for your fantasy manager job to finally pay off.
Gather your friends and foes and see who has the best strategic skills in fantasy football!